Sunday, December 28, 2008

For years one of my favorite webcomics has been Bob the Angry Flower. The subject matter of the strip runs the gamut from international politics to mad science (real and imaginary) to the horrors of trying to give up smoking, all with easy cartoony linework, weird characters and fun dialogue. And along the way creator Stephen Notley whips up quite a few monsters, which leads to today's post.

Stab Fairies are the warrior class among fey peoples such as pixies and sprites. They attack larger creatures by flying into their foe's faces and slashing with all four blade limbs. Survivors of combats with these little maniacs often sport jagged facial scars.

These undead have slashing knives, snipping scissors and spinning dental instruments where their hands should be. Knife ghosts are immune to sleep, charm, hold and invulnerable to normal weapons, including silver. The wounds caused by these creatures rusty and dirty blades may not be healed in any manner until the victim is the recipient of a cure disease spell. [My bud Stuart whipped me up some 3E stats for Knife Ghosts back in '04 or so, but I'll be damned if I can find them right now.]

These tentacled horrors normally lurk in the deepest ocean trenches and certain murky underground lakes, but they occasionally visit the surface world for the purpose of rampage. Instead of attacking with its mighty tentacles a cephalogod may opt to fix its loathsome gaze upon any single creature, who must save versus paralysis at -4 or be held for 2d6 turns.

Certain horrible grimoires record the ritual necessary for the conjuration of this infernal terror. Belaphathon casts spells as an 8th level magic-user and it is usually called to teach the summoner new spells. Note that it will only teach one spell per summoning unless the parties can agree to some long term pact. As is normal with such beings, Belaphathon will twist the meaning of commands, seek to bargain for the eternal soul of the conjurer, etc. Belaphathon cannot be harmed by normal weapons, but is vulnerable to silver and any weapon that has been blessed by a cleric since it last shed blood.

These guys aren't automatically hostile, but they have very short tempers. Angry attack bananas hop up to foes and latch on with their vicious fangs. Once they have sunk teeth into their victim they will not let go, doing automatic damage each round until dead. No doubt another creation of some smirking archmage with too much time on his hands.

"Man, is there anything Jeff CAN'T do when it comes to gaming? This guy is like a critical 20 every roll. Jeff can bite the heads offa five game geeks, including their sorry-ass DM, and spit 'em into a large duffel bag ONE AT A TIME!...that's just the kind of messed up bastard he is! You think yer a gamer, punk? Well..do ya? Jeff will depants your weasel-ass right in front of your grandma."